Chevy Bolt - 200 mile range for $30k base price (after incentive)

[McRat]

LOL.

1) Chevy is not Lexus. Neither is Cadillac for the matter.

....

Cadillac is certainly not Lexus. 640HP, 4 door, 4140lb, $85k, run 'ring times with the best, but also makes a smooth boulevard cruiser due to the electronic shocks. Even the wimpy 556hp version (I think we paid $68k? out the door?) laps in under 8 minutes.

When Lexus makes something fast, it's $400,000 by the time you take delivery, IF you can get one, but it's not a capable as $100k Chevrolets that sitting on lots.

Abuse a Lexus like folk thrash their Cads, and I doubt it would hold up. Secret to making reliable cars? Make them slow, so nothing breaks, and only the timid buy them. Low stress, driven like an antique china teacup, SUCCESS! Toyota has used that winning formula forever.

When Toyota makes bigger vehicles with more power, their reliability and fuel economy falls faster than the market average. Only buy the timid ones.

 

[scaesare]

This is as I suspected after seeing the range numbers they are getting. I think it's a smart move to slightly over deliver on usable battery capacity, something I hope Tesla will do in the future.

Interesting. I wonder if this is deliberate sand-bagging, or if Chevy is moving to stating "usable capacity" for the packs?

 

[McRat]

Interesting. I wonder if this is deliberate sand-bagging, or if Chevy is moving to stating "usable capacity" for the packs?

It's part of the corporate culture at Chevrolet. It's been that way since at least 1999, when I started dyno testing production cars, and racing Chevolet.

Chevy was the first company to adopt the new tighter SAE horsepower calculations. So a 2000 Chevrolet HP rating is not equal to other brands.

If GM believes that pack kWh or EV range is going to be put to a higher standard, they will probably incorporate it before the document is published.

 

[bro1999]

Interesting to me is how the Bolt even has more EPA range than a 75 kWh S (234 vs 238 for the Bolt).

Obviously aero isn't everything. Engineering the powertrain and its efficiency is worth something too I guess.

 

[scaesare]

Yeah, Chevy is known to be deliberately conservative.

But I wonder if it's a "surprise, the battery is bigger than advertised!" tactic, by deliberately including more or larger cells, of it it's a conscious decision to specifically state only usable capacity? If the latter, is that a change from how they stated battery capacity previously?

According to this article, the physical make up of the Volt and Spark packs calculate to ~60 and ~20kW respectively, which would seem to indicate they are using the same capacity methodology on both cars.

What's the situation with the Spark? When depleting/charging, the pack, can you u se all 20kW, or is there a buffer?

If the Spark can consume all 20kW, then perhaps they've been using this methodology of stating capacity for a while...

 

[bro1999]

Yeah, Chevy is known to be deliberately conservative.

But I wonder if it's a "surprise, the battery is bigger than advertised!" tactic, by deliberately including more or larger cells, of it it's a conscious decision to specifically state only usable capacity? If the latter, is that a change from how they stated battery capacity previously?

According to this article, the physical make up of the Volt and Spark packs calculate to ~60 and ~20kW respectively, which would seem to indicate they are using the same capacity methodology on both cars.

What's the situation with the Spark? When depleting/charging, the pack, can you u se all 20kW, or is there a buffer?

If the Spark can consume all 20kW, then perhaps they've been using this methodology of stating capacity for a while...

There is a buffer in the Spark, but it is tiny. I had a '16 Spark EV (2 actually) for a while, and while the official battery size was 19 kWh (unofficially 19.44 according to a GM engineer) , I saw as much as 18.4 kWh reported for kWh used. So the 15-16 Spark EVs (2014 had a different chemistry) uses at least 95% of its capacity.

If the Bolt indeed has 60 kWh USABLE, that would suggest its overall size is at least 63 kWh.

 

[scaesare]

So only about 5% then... interesting. Thanks for the info.

 

[Jopo43]

Can we move this to the GM(junk) board..........stop clogging up this board of the future with the past..... stop talking about a pretend electric car company......and use this board for a real electric car company

 

[bro1999]

Can we move this to the GM(junk) board..........stop clogging up this board of the future with the past..... stop talking about a pretend electric car company......and use this board for a real electric car company

Man, the Bolt is the best pretend electric car I've ever seen then! And impressive all these journalists from countless news outlets could drive these pretend EVs so well!

 

[Jopo43]

Again its the tesla board not gm junk........

 

[JRP3]

Interesting to me is how the Bolt even has more EPA range than a 75 kWh S (234 vs 238 for the Bolt).

Obviously aero isn't everything. Engineering the powertrain and its efficiency is worth something too I guess.

How do you figure? EPA testing is not steady state highway driving, when aero actually matters most. For EPA testing weight is likely a greater factor than powertrain efficiency, (which is likely similar across most EV's). In mixed and stop and go weight has a higher impact, so the results of the lighter vehicle are not surprising.

 

[bro1999]

Again its the tesla board not gm junk........

This is the "Electric Vehicles" sub-forum. Last time I checked, the Bolt is an electric vehicle.

 

[JRP3]

Again its the tesla board not gm junk........

But this is the Bolt thread. We do talk about other EV's here.

 

[bro1999]

How do you figure? EPA testing is not steady state highway driving, when aero actually matters most. For EPA testing weight is likely a greater factor than powertrain efficiency, (which is likely similar across most EV's). In mixed and stop and go weight has a higher impact, so the results of the lighter vehicle are not surprising.

Whoops, my bad. The MT article was wrong. The S70 has the EPA 234 range. So Bolt range > S70.

 

[Breezy]

He's talking about cell and pack production by LG Chem. Earlier this year it was calculated at ~50k units per year if LG Chem maxed out their existing capacity. The final assembly I don't think there is a real limit because GM has plenty of factory capacity for that.

He said "GM's announced Bolt production for the first year and possibly the first few years is only 30K a year." There has been no such announcement. Lots of people have said that's the production target, but they can't "announce" anything unless they speak for GM.

LG's capacity falls into the speculation category. I happen to think that ~50,000 per year is a reasonable estimate of LG's capacity, which aligns nicely with the rumour of 30 cars/hour x 8 hours/day = 240 cars per day = ~60,000 per year after holidays and shutdowns. But none of these things has been announced.

 

[diamond.g]

Whoops, my bad. The MT article was wrong. The S70 has the EPA 234 range. So Bolt range > S70.

That isn't bad considering the Model S weight nearly 1000lbs more than the Bolt.

 

[Zoomit]

What's the situation with the Spark? When depleting/charging, the pack, can you u se all 20kW, or is there a buffer?

If the Spark can consume all 20kW, then perhaps they've been using this methodology of stating capacity for a while...

This indicates an average usable capacity in the '15/'16 Spark EVs of 17.7 kWh against a 19.44 kWh total. That would be a 10% buffer.
Chevy Spark EV Forum • View topic - One Year of Battery Capacity Data

 

[Jeff N]

There is a buffer in the Spark, but it is tiny. I had a '16 Spark EV (2 actually) for a while, and while the official battery size was 19 kWh (unofficially 19.44 according to a GM engineer) , I saw as much as 18.4 kWh reported for kWh used. So the 15-16 Spark EVs (2014 had a different chemistry) uses at least 95% of its capacity.

If the Bolt indeed has 60 kWh USABLE, that would suggest its overall size is at least 63 kWh.

I have never seen a GM published specification saying the 2015-2016 Spark EV nominal capacity is 19.4 kWh. I have seen a number of auto forum and press articles say this. However, GM's published number is 18.4 kWh. Keen observers may notice that 18.4 kWh is the same as the 2016-2017 Volt, that it uses the same number of cells as the new Volt, the cells appear to be of similar size, and both batteries are made in the same factory. However, I don't know if they are exactly the same cell.

I haven't seen a published usable capacity for the Spark EV but I understand it is close to the nominal capacity and may be 95-96% with only minimal anti-bricking protection. GM engineers have said the Bolt EV similarly allows use of almost the full nominal capacity.

Based on the limited information we have seen I wouldn't be surprised if the published 60 kWh capacity is actually slightly higher -- maybe 62 or 63 -- but at this point it's all just speculation. Because GM seems to allow relatively full access to the battery it is hard to separate "usable" from "nominal" capacity.

Of course, just because they allow you to use almost the last drop of energy doesn't mean that you should do so regularly if you want to preserve the best battery life.

GM does clearly distinguish usable from nominal capacity for its PHEV/EREV cars which need to retain a substantial minimum state of charge in order to operate at full performance in hybrid operation. The original Volt model used about 65% of its 16 kWh capacity and the latest 2016+ model uses 14.0 kWh or about 75% of its 18.4 kWh capacity.

 

[bro1999]

I have never seen a GM published specification saying the 2015-2016 Spark EV nominal capacity is 19.4 kWh or even 19 kWh. I have seen a number of auto forum and press articles say this. However, GM's published number is 18.4 kWh. Keen observers may notice that 18.4 kWh is the same as the 2016-2017 Volt, that it uses the same number of cells as the new Volt, the cells appear to be of similar size, and both batteries are made in the same factory. However, I don't know if they are exactly the same cell.

I haven't seen a published usable capacity for the Spark EV but I understand it is close to the nominal capacity and may be 95-96% with only minimal anti-bricking protection. GM engineers have said the Bolt EV similarly allows use of almost the full nominal capacity.

Based on the limited information we have seen I wouldn't be surprised if the published 60 kWh capacity is actually slightly higher -- maybe 62 or 63 -- but at this point it's all just speculation. Because GM seems to allow relatively full access to the battery it is hard to separate "usable" from "nominal" capacity.

Of course, just because they allow you to use almost the last drop of energy doesn't mean that you should do so regularly if you want to preserve the best battery life.

GM does clearly distinguish usable from nominal capacity for its PHEV/EREV cars which need to retain a substantial minimum state of charge in order to operate at full performance in hybrid operation. The original Volt model used about 65% of its 16 kWh capacity and the latest 2016+ model uses 14.0 kWh or about 75% of its 18.4 kWh capacity.

A "GM engineer on a certain Volt forum" told me the 15/16 Spark EV's nominal capacity was 19.44 kWh, even though the official press blast for the '16 Spark EV said the battery was 19.0 kWh. I personally observed my '16 Spark EVs using up to 18.1 (extrapolated to 18.5 used if I drove till all capacity was used) kWh on a single charge. So the buffer, whatever it exactly is, is only around 5% tops.

18.1 kWh used and 98% battery charge used....extrapolating out to 100%, that gives 18.5 kWh usable. So if 19 or 19.44 kWh is the true overall capacity, that's either 97% or 95% utilization.

 

[Jeff N]

This indicates an average usable capacity in the '15/'16 Spark EVs of 17.7 kWh against a 19.44 kWh total. That would be a 10% buffer.

A "GM engineer on a certain Volt forum" told me the 15/16 Spark EV's nominal capacity was 19.44 kWh, even though the official press blast for the '16 Spark EV said the battery was 19.0 kWh.

The official line from GM is:
Chevrolet Pressroom - United States - Spark EV

It uses no gasoline, yet its GM-built motor and drive unit deliver 327 lb-ft (444 Nm) of instant torque, enabling a 0-60 time of 7.2 seconds. Storing that energy from the charging process and the vehicle’s regenerative braking capability is an 18.4-kWh lithium-ion battery pack.

And:
Chevrolet Pressroom - United States - Spark EV

And:
Chevrolet to Open Retail Sales of Spark EV in Canada

Storing that energy from the charging process and the vehicle’s regenerative braking capability is an 18.4-kWh lithium-ion battery pack.

On the other hand, a 2016 Spark EV press release does say 19 kWh:
https://media.gm.com/content/media/...extfile/file.res/16-PG-Chevrolet-Spark-EV.pdf

1. Encased in a strong, composite material case below the load floor over the rear axle, Spark EV’s 19-kWh lithium-ion battery is designed to deliver value, safety, quality, performance, durability and reliability. GM engineers have completed more than one million miles and four million hours of validation on Spark EV’s battery packs.

It's hard to know for certain... GM and LG have tweaked the battery cells every 2-3 years on the Volt so it's a possibility that the 2016 Spark EV cells have slightly more capacity than the 2015 Spark EV cells.